Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ordinary Men, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom of Choice
Peer Pressure, Conformity, and Acceptance
Normalization of Violence
Nationalism, War, and Ethnic Cleansing
Summary
Analysis
By the end of September 1942, Reserve Police Battalion 101 has participated in the shooting of 4,600 Jews and 78 Poles. Additionally, they have helped deport about 15,000 Jews to Treblinka. These events took place over eight actions and three months, and most were done without the help of Hiwis. Between the beginning of October and early November, however, the action speeds up—events blur together, and the men struggle to separate individual ghetto clearings in their minds. To reconstruct the following events as correctly as possible, Browning uses research done by other historians and institutions.
The action speeds up during this time (late 1942) because Globocnik begins really pushing hard to carry out his part of Hitler’s Final Solution—he wants to quickly move the Jews to extermination camps so he can kill them and establish a Jew-free district in Poland. It’s also important to remember that Browning is relying heavily on testimonies from men who are trying to recall events that took place over 20 years earlier—their memories are bound to be distorted and biased because no man wants to admit that, by this point in 1942, they were nearly all guilty of having participated in one of the world genocides in modern history.
Themes
In early September, a new security zone is created, allowing for the transfer of the First and Second Platoons of Gnade’s Second Company into new territory, including Międzyrzec and Komarówka. In the fall, the Międzyrzec ghetto is restocked with Jews from nearby areas. The policemen are active in these transports, but the events blur together. One deportation is memorable because a Jewish lady on the transport owned a movie theater in Hamburg that one of the men used to frequent. This shuffling around and concentrating of the Jews is a prelude to renewed transports to Treblinka as part of the mission to make Lublin judenfrei. Reserve Police Battalion 101 provides the bulk of the manpower in rounding up and deporting Jews from Radzyn county in October.
In the period leading up to the beginning of World War II, Germans were taught to see all of their enemies as foreign, starting with Bolsheviks in Russia and soon expanding to the countries who fought against Germany (namely America and England). The Nazis successfully incorporated Jews into the general image of a foreign enemy, but here the men meet another Jew from Germany and again they are faced with the realization that somehow one could be both a German and an enemy. That is why this meeting (and every other time the men meet a Jew from Germany) stands out in so many minds. At this point, the men have no doubt about what is going on in Poland—the Final Solution is not as big of a secret as it once was, and by now the men in the battalion have had plenty of time to notice that they are following a pattern of rounding Jews up from small areas, concentrating them in large ones, and then deporting them to known extermination camps.
Themes
Six weeks of continuous ghetto clearings, deportations, and shootings begin on October 1. By the time it’s over, Reserve Police Battalion 101 has helped deport over 27,000 Jews to Treblinka and has killed around 1,000 more in the process. What the policemen remember about these actions is extremely varied. Apparently, there are relatively few shootings on the spot, although shortly after the first transport, Steinmetz’s Third Platoon of Second Company shoots 100 Jews who miss the deportation train. During the clearing of Międzyrzec, Gnade’s Second Company and Drucker’s Second Platoon join up with some Hiwis to drive the Jews into the main square before heading to the train station. Gnade’s first sergeant says that Gnade apparently gets pleasure out of whipping and shooting the Jews at the train station.
Ghetto clearings offer each man a lot more freedom to choose whether to use violence against the unarmed Jews. As seen in an earlier testimony, it is possible to simply walk around in the ghetto without ever hurting or killing anyone. Still, most men clearly choose to either shoot or, like Gnade, take it a step further by hurting the Jews just for the sake of hurting them. Once again someone says that Gnade seems to enjoy the pain he inflicts on others, which raises the question of whether he was somehow predisposed to violence before joining the battalion. If so, the war gives Gnade and other people like him the opportunity to willfully inflict both physical and psychological pain on other people without fear of punishment.
Themes
At the train station, no amount of violence can make all the Jews fit into the limited number of train cars, so Gnade orders Drucker to shoot the 150 Jews that won’t fit. First Sergeant Ostmann brings the shooters some vodka and jokes with at least one of the men who has thus far evaded shooting that he’ll have to be ready to shoot the women. All the men shoot about seven or eight times that night. One Jewish man lunges at Drucker, but he is quickly subdued and shot. The rest of the Jews waiting to be shot are very emaciated and quiet, according to one guard.
In this situation, the men haven’t received orders from Lublin to shoot the Jews—they’ve decided on their own that it would be better to shoot them. This means they’ve moved beyond just being willing to murder when they have instructions to do so. In this case, they choose to do it independently of formal orders—and, considering Gnade’s sadistic streak, it is possible that they’re doing it because they like it, not because they feel like they have to. It is also clear that some of the men who didn’t shoot at Józefów are beginning to shoot now. Ostmann jokes with one man that he’ll have to shoot, but given the well established history of commanders saying these things and still excusing men who don’t want to shoot, there’s no reason to believe the man would have been forced to participate or harshly punished if he chose not to.
Themes
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It’s hard to determine how many victims there are in this deportation, but a few days later the Międzyrzec ghetto is restocked with 2,000 to 3,000 Jews. The ghetto is once again cleared in late October and early November. Gnade, now completely in charge of these actions, oversees both clearings and introduces a new step in the deportation process: the Jews are forced to strip and then the policemen search them for valuables, after which the Jews are forced to march to the train station without clothes despite the extreme cold. Between August and September, Reserve Police Battalion 101 helps deport 25,000 Jews to Treblinka.
Gnade has made the Jews he’s about to execute take their clothes off in the past, but in this case, they’re taking their clothes off and then going on a train. Gnade is thus making them endure a much longer period of discomfort and humiliation. This would have been extremely traumatic for women, especially because the men would search their bodies for valuables (jewelry, for instance). Gnade’s sadism seems to increase in proportion to how much power he has over a given situation. In these situations, he is the highest-ranking officer and he derives pleasure from exerting his power to hurt others and to order his men to cause their victims unnecessary pain and humiliation. The men are sending tens of thousands of Jews to extermination camps in a very short amount of time because they are reaching the height of the Final Solution process in their district.
Themes
Meanwhile, First Company carries out similar actions in Łuków, but Wohlauf is no longer their leader. After an illness and the deaths of his brother and father, Wohlauf returns to Germany permanently. His men, however, carry out deportations from Łuków with help from Steinmetz’s men and a unit of Hiwis. A total of 7,000 Jews are deported over two days, but the events seem to have been more “humane” than the deportations from Międzyrzec—relatively little shooting and violence. After these deportations, battalion headquarters moves to Łuków and Steinmetz’s platoon returns to Parczew. About 700 Jews from Kock transfer to Łuków and the final deportation begins the next morning. About 3,000 to 4,000 Jews are deported to Treblinka and 50 people are killed in retaliation for the Jewish ghetto police’s failure to report hidden Jews.
The men describe the deportations at Łuków as “humane,” but this description must be understood in the context of how habituated they have become to violence at this point. Most of the men no longer seem to think twice about shooting someone (especially the sick and elderly) and some of them have developed a real liking for murder. While someone who is not in this position might think any amount of killing is inhumane, these men seem to applaud themselves on there only being a few shootings. This is contrasted with their horror and disgust at being asked to kill unarmed Jews for the first time at Józefów, as well as how angry and ashamed they were afterwards. If the men feel any shame after these actions, Browning either found no evidence of it or has chosen not to include it in the book.
Themes
During the deportations, the Security Police attempt to lure out Jews who are hiding by announcing that new identity cards will be passed out and everyone must have one. Some of the Jews who show up are spared, but two more groups are shot. The Order Police help in at least one of these shootings. Trapp isn’t there, so Security Police make Buchmann and his men help and he is present for the execution of one group. When other men from the battalion staff show up and hear that they will also have to shoot, several ask to be excused, which Buchmann allows. This places Buchmann in a similar position to Trapp at Józefów, and like Trapp Buchmann puts physical distance between himself and the shooting when he can. Shortly after this, Buchmann finally returns to Hamburg and is later promoted.
Despite Buchmann’s well known aversion towards violence, he is put in a very difficult position by the Security Police. Suddenly, Buchmann is confronted with a new kind of choice. He felt like he was safe refusing to take part in the violence in Józefów because he knew Trapp would let him, but now he doesn’t feel as free to make that same choice. Like Trapp, Buchmann does what superior officers tell him to do even though it goes against his conscience, and like Trapp he puts physical distance between himself and the violence after he gives his orders so he doesn’t have to witness the results. The men differ in that Buchmann then takes steps to make sure he’ll never feel compelled to do something that goes so far outside of his understanding of moral behavior again. Despite Trapp’s sadness and regret in Józefów, he was clearly not as opposed to it as Buchmann because he did not officially try to remove himself from the situation permanently.
Themes
